Larry David is Role Model for Schizophrenia Sufferers

[Trainee clinical psychologist, David] Roberts began showing TV clips during therapy sessions [with schizophrenia patients]. Soon he had narrowed his selections down to one show: television’s purest expression of social dysfunction, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Roberts considers Larry David to be the perfect proxy for a schizophrenic person. “On his way into his dentist’s office, he holds the door open for a woman, and, as a result, she’s seen first,” he said. “He stews, he fumes, he explodes. He’s breaking the social rules that folks with schizophrenia often break. […] It’s a classic example of a major social cognitive error-jumping to conclusions – that schizophrenic patients are prone to.”

So…

Roberts and his U.N.C. adviser, David Penn, began to formalize these findings, mapping out a teachable technique called Social Cognition and Interaction Training. They tested SCIT in four preliminary studies, and in post-training evaluations patients showed significant improvement in deciphering social situations.